


Familiar

by Blake



Series: Pigeon Facts [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Familiars, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, pigeon facts, unrequited pigeon/human love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: Merlin gets a pigeon. Arthur gets jealous.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Pigeon Facts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082732
Comments: 14
Kudos: 191





	Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> So, my wife's pigeon considers me his rival for her affections and tries to kill me. I'm glad I finally got to write about this experience lol. This one's for you, Crazy Boy.

Leave it to Merlin to get attacked by a pigeon whilst out on a pheasant hunt. Arthur watches it happen, torn between laughter and pity. It’s just such a ridiculous sight: the purple-grey flurry of wings around Merlin’s scrunched-up face, the soft movements of Merlin’s hands in the air as he tries to swat it away. If it were a crow, or a hawk, or anything dangerous in the slightest, Arthur would have jumped off his horse and onto Merlin’s to wring the bird’s neck. But it wasn’t anything dangerous. It was a pigeon.

Arthur runs out of laughter eventually. By that point, the pigeon has made itself at home on Merlin’s shoulder. It sits calmly on its perch, cooing here and there, flying easily to Merlin’s opposite shoulder every once in a while. Eventually, Merlin starts talking to it.

“Would you like me to shoot it off your shoulder?” Arthur interrupts with a subtle gesture of his crossbow, which has not gotten any use since the pigeon’s cooing started alerting all the nearby prey to their presence. “It’s not much of a feast, but it’s better than nothing.”

Merlin does not deign to look at him. “If you so much as try, I will knock you off your horse.”

Arthur laughs, trying to imagine the mechanics of Merlin attempting to shove him bodily off his mount. He takes special comfort in Merlin’s most empty threats. It makes him feel more certain that Merlin knows that all of _his_ threats are empty, too. 

The pigeon stays perched on Merlin’s shoulder, digging its talons in deep and drawing attention to the way Merlin’s form has broadened out in the last year or so. The crest of his shoulder is the perfect fit for a man’s hand, not a bird’s foot.

Compelled, Arthur draws his horse up alongside Merlin’s and reaches out to touch. The pigeon. The pigeon flaps its wings in a surprisingly threatening manner. Suddenly not so sure that a pigeon can’t be dangerous, Arthur retreats.

“Why does it seem to like you so much?” he asks with a scowl. 

Merlin continues to look straight ahead. The beam of his smile is brighter than the meager April sunlight. “Maybe he sees me for what I really am, and how valuable, powerful, wise, and hardworking I am.”

Sometimes, the self-assured smugness in Merlin’s voice when he says things like that frightens Arthur. If it’s so very obvious that Arthur sees infinite value in his friend’s companionship, if it’s so very obvious that he _likes_ Merlin _so much_ , and all Merlin cares to do about it is tease him about it, then what is Arthur supposed to do? He can’t have Merlin’s guidance or support in facing all his own questions of _why_ there’s no limit to how much he wants Merlin by his side, and _how_ much Arthur loves him. Arthur hates facing serious questions alone. He’s something close to resentful about it. “I’m glad you found such camaraderie with a bird whose head is smaller than my thumb.”

~~~

Halfway through Arthur’s breakfast the next morning, a pigeon flies in through his open window and starts flapping in wild circles around Merlin’s head.

Arthur leans back in his chair, savoring a bit of sausage and also the amusing sight of Merlin helplessly fighting off yet another fearsome dove.

“Should we be expecting _all_ the pigeons of Camelot to come paying you a visit?”

“Not all of them. This is the same one.” Merlin looks and sounds quite flustered as he tries to duck and spin, his absolute dearth of combat skills on full display.

“Perhaps she fancies you,” Arthur says, smiling at the way the bird keeps lifting up mouthfuls of Merlin’s hair in its beak.

Apparently giving up the battle, Merlin stops moving and stands up straight, allowing the pigeon to land directly on the crown of his head. “ _He_ likes me. He followed me home. I left him in my room, but he must have gotten out.”

“And he had nothing better to do than come straight to you,” Arthur says doubtfully.

Finally, Merlin stops paying attention to the bird long enough to give Arthur a wry look. “Like I said, _he_ understands and appreciates me.”

Arthur gets up and strides toward him, driven by some nameless need to shoo the bird easily away and prove that its loyalty is not so substantial after all. He reaches up, noticing every minute movement of Merlin’s lips and flicker of his long eyelashes under the shadow of his hand as it passes.

He wasn’t prepared for the violent stab of a bird’s beak on his finger. “Ow.” Arthur pulls back, shaking his hand to release the pain of impact. He stares up at the bird. Its beady eyes seem to stare back, appearing either devoid of all thought or full of murderous intent.

Merlin snickers, says, “He doesn’t like you,” and then snickers some more.

Arthur still can’t believe a pigeon would be intelligent enough to tell between one person and another, so he raises his hand again, intending to push the bird off of Merlin’s head.

Later that morning, once the bird is sent out and the windows are closed, Merlin rubs a salve into the scratches and peck-marks his ridiculous bird left all over Arthur’s hand and forearm. The salve is quite nice, and Arthur can almost see the marks start to disappear as Merlin bends his head to look at them. Merlin’s hair is even more of a mess than usual from the stomping of pigeon feet and gentle beak-bites. With his uninjured hand, Arthur reaches up to ruffle it further, shake out the oily cowlicks of it until all distinct traces of talon-shapes are gone from it, and only the careless mess of Arthur’s rubbing is left behind.

The annoyed look Merlin gives him really completes the picture.

~~~

The bird starts going with Merlin everywhere. Or, nearly everywhere. Merlin seems to manage to lock the thing up for just long enough to _almost_ complete any task that requires physical proximity to Arthur, such as dressing him or washing him or putting on his armor. But the bird always comes bursting into the room in a flurry just in time to interrupt, no matter how securely Merlin claims to have fastened the windows shut.

“Honestly, Merlin, I’m beginning to suspect treason,” he shouts over the cacophonous flapping of wings echoing in his bath water as Merlin attempts to collect the pigeon attacking his king’s head. “I’ve never heard such hateful _cooing_ before.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Merlin finally grabs the bird between his two delicate hands and hurries to stand on the other side of the room. “He’s just. He. He just likes me.”

“Ah,” Arthur says, resuming his own washing with a straight face, as though he wasn’t afraid of the cooing poultry on the other side of the room, and as though he wasn’t annoyed at having to scrub down his own back. He had been very much enjoying the way Merlin had been doing it for him. He should probably get another manservant, one who isn’t being prevented from doing his job by a violent bird. But Arthur is fairly certain he wouldn’t actually like the way any other manservant dressed him or washed him, and then he would have to _reflect_ on why he enjoys Merlin’s attentions as much as he does. So the whole thing is out of the question. Arthur would just have to continue to finish washing and dressing himself while Merlin watched with an expression that was equal parts guilt and amusement.

~~~

It doesn’t _always_ get in the way. As long as Merlin and Arthur are not in close proximity, the bird seems happy enough to quietly coo, perched on Merlin’s head or shoulder while he goes about his business.

But every once in a while, Arthur will look up from his maps and scrolls to see Merlin _not_ tidying up Arthur’s wardrobe, but caressing the pigeon and rubbing his face against its feathers—its very clean, very shiny feathers, since Merlin has taken to feeding the bird only the most nutritious seeds and hand-bathing it every week.

Arthur settles deeper into his chair, trying to use it to scratch the hard-to-reach spot in the middle of his back that he hasn’t managed to properly wash in ages, since his manservant can’t come within an arm’s length of him. He grabs the table knife from his lunch, which has still not been cleared away. He aims the knife at the pigeon’s puffed-up chest and mimics the arc of aiming a throw at it until Merlin finally takes notice.

“Arthur,” he warns, sounding alarmed, as though he actually fears Arthur might follow through.

“Just hold still. I promise I won’t hit your head. My aim is true.”

Merlin rushes to shove the pigeon out the window and then fasten it shut. Arthur isn’t sure if he’s more pleased that the pigeon is gone, or annoyed that he can only get Merlin’s full attention by activating Merlin’s instinct to defend the life of a stupid bird.

When Merlin turns away from the window, Arthur curls his finger, beckoning him closer. The heart-racing relief he feels when Merlin actually obeys is probably excessive. He probably shouldn’t be so hungry for his friend’s touch that he goes dizzy with the promise of it.

Once Merlin is standing beside him and is bent low enough for Arthur to whisper in his ear, if he wanted to, Arthur looks all across his face for clues to how he’s supposed to feel. But he finds no clues, only the same strong, delicate features that leave him feeling lost at sea, the same infuriatingly mussed hair that never maintains the groove marks of his fingers, and—Well. There is one thing that’s different.

Arthur reaches up to the hair above Merlin’s ear and pinches out a piece of white, crusted bird droppings. He shows it to Merlin with a tight smile meant to communicate something like, _See, your so-called appreciative bird is not so thoughtful and considerate after all, is it? Wouldn’t you rather spend time with someone who_ doesn’t _shit in your hair?_

Merlin rolls his eyes and walks back over to the wardrobe, mumbling about how not _everyone_ has the luxury of having a bath drawn for them every night.

Arthur supposes he did not quite succeed in getting his point across. “Of all the pets in the world, couldn’t you have picked one that doesn’t shit in your hair? One that you could leave at home, or that could do anything useful? Or at the very least, one that doesn’t want to kill me?”

“He’s not a pet,” Merlin says, smiling fondly to himself as he shakes the wrinkles out of one of Arthur’s tunics. “He’s my—We have a bond.”

“So it’s _you_ who wants to kill the King of Camelot, and the bird is merely moved to do so out of loyalty to you.”

“Well, you are a bit of a tyrant.”

“A bit,” Arthur grumbles, already planning to order him to draw a bath just so he can shove Merlin into it and scrub his hair clean for him.

~~~

Arthur very generously pays for a fine iron cage to be made and brought to Merlin’s room. Things get somewhat better after that, though Arthur has noted that whenever Merlin is not at his side, he walks around with the pigeon on his shoulder. The pigeon seems to like Gawain quite a lot, and lets Gwen stroke its neck with her finger, and generally acts very civilized whenever Arthur espies it from afar.

“Why do you let that filthy thing walk all over your head like that?” Arthur asks the next time the three of them are alone. What he means is, _Why do you let something so close to you which so clearly hates me?_

Merlin shrugs, looking stupidly happy as his eyes roll up to try to glimpse the bird dancing in circles on his scalp. “Feels nice.”

Those were exactly the words he’d said when Arthur was digging his fingers in to scrape his hair clean last week. Arthur had been so busy trying not to look down under the surface of the dirty water that he’d been taken by surprise at the sound of Merlin’s voice. The memory had stuck with Arthur just as strongly as the memory of the weight of Merlin’s head filling his palms. Now he has to wonder if Merlin had only thought his touch felt nice because it had reminded him of his confounded bird.

Arthur has no water to splash violently in Merlin’s face in response this time, so he has to use words. “Idiot.”

~~~

The next morning, Arthur is startled awake by a bird attacking his face. It takes him less than two seconds to suspect that his assailant is Merlin’s pigeon, but it takes him more than two minutes to confirm his suspicion, since he has to squint his eyes shut and cross his arms over his head to defend himself and thus can’t see much besides vague moving shadows.

Merlin, of all people, saves his life.

“Get that thing _out_ of my castle,” he shouts. His heart is still racing from the helpless, futile feeling of fending off a wild animal attack, and his face is flushed from being saved so easily by Merlin simply scooping the bird up and pinning its wings back.

He’s so upset that he expects Merlin to refuse his orders, or for _something_ else horrible to happen, but Merlin promptly runs over to the window and shuts the bird out into the cold, dark morning. “I followed him here as fast as I could. I’m sorry he got out.”

Arthur sits up in bed so he can run his hands over his bare chest, checking for scratches. He thinks doing so might draw Merlin’s attention, as well. “Why did he come _here_ upon escaping?” Arthur grumbles, since Merlin is merely standing beside the bed, twisting the hem of his tunic in his hands instead of inspecting his king for injuries. “I really think there might be sorcery involved. Perhaps you’re harboring the familiar of some evil witch who wants my eyes pecked out of their skull.”

Merlin laughs. He _laughs_ at Arthur’s pain and concern. “It’s not that.”

Arthur sighs heavily and rests back against the pillows. He looks up at Merlin’s half-pink grin. Arthur is struck by the terror of realizing how many hundreds of times he has imagined what it would feel like to lick across his teeth. “Well, what is it, then?”

“He’s just, erm.” The grin disappears from Merlin’s face. His hollow cheeks go red. They would probably feel hot to the touch.

“Just what?”

Merlin gets that deliberate, bright, stubborn look he gets when he’s about to tell a lie. “He’s very protective of me. He knows how poorly you treat me, and it angers him.”

“How _poorly_ I treat you?” Arthur says in mock disbelief, his voice running hot and throaty with—with—Well, he doesn’t know what with, but it’s something like frustration, or injustice, or needing to feel Merlin’s bones under his hands. He pulls Merlin down by his tunic and shoves him onto the bed before crawling on top of him, grinding his teeth all the while. Merlin is just so—Just so—

And there it is. That look Merlin gives him sometimes. The look that makes Arthur feel like he’s the most important object in the whole world. The look that inspires him to sleep in the nude every night, because watching those deep blue eyes catch on his bare skin, and watching those shapely lips part on a breath, and thinking maybe, _maybe_ —

“You’re lying,” Arthur says. Merlin is under him, in his bed. His knee is between Merlin’s legs. Merlin’s careful-reckless smile is just inches beneath his own. Arthur’s palms remember the weight of Merlin’s head. His tongue remembers imagining licking across his teeth.

“Oh, am I?” Merlin asks, and Arthur’s heart crumbles like parchment on fire, engulfed in the utter joy of the power of having Merlin stand up to him and cede to him at the same time, just as he always does. Arthur squeezes his hands into the barely-there meat of Merlin’s shoulders. He thinks about lowering his body down to press Merlin into the bed, but he can’t, not yet, can’t let himself until he knows, for sure.

“Making up stories about your infernal pigeon, just to get me to treat you more nicely.”

Merlin’s eyes lift to his at last, though they drag as though reluctant to leave Arthur’s mouth behind, and it makes Arthur’s heart stop mid-beat to see. “Is it working?”

His cheeky smile promises that he already knows the answer, and Arthur would probably berate him if his hands weren’t so breathtakingly light and warm where they brace against Arthur’s chest, as though he’s just waiting, or _wanting_ , to be crushed.

Arthur’s breath stutters in his chest when he lowers it onto Merlin’s, because it’s blindingly perfect, and he hadn’t realized how badly he missed Merlin’s touch, how much he’d grown used to it, how much he’d come to depend on it to feel alive. He feels alive, now, sucking in the choppy exhales that fall from Merlin’s lips, watching every prism-like shift in the complex blue of Merlin’s eyes as they focus intently on him, on him, like they’ve always been focused on him. “That depends on what counts as treating you nicely,” he whispers, his lips catching against Merlin’s when he dips his head down low enough for Merlin to take what he wants or leave it.

Merlin’s eyes blaze frighteningly bright for a second, and he seems to hold his breath like someone about to plunge into snowmelt, and it strikes fear into Arthur’s heart, but the fear feels only as bad as it feels _good_ , and then—

Their lips meet. Their lips meet, and then their mouths melt together, and Arthur feels himself open like a lock finally giving way to its key. He can’t—He can’t get _enough_ of it, of the taste of Merlin’s tongue, and the stolen, fractured shards of his breath, and the way he’s kissing Arthur like he can’t get enough of it either, and the way his whole body surges up against Arthur’s, which is mostly shivers and want by now, and the way Merlin’s hands roam his body like they’ve wanted to for years and he squeezes Arthur’s arse possessively like it’s a coveted prize he’s already certain that he’s won.

When Arthur comes, it’s with Merlin’s seed coating his stomach, Merlin’s finger deep inside him, Merlin’s teeth against his tongue, and the weight of Merlin’s head filling his palms. If there’s a prize to be won, Arthur feels certain he is the one to have won it.

Merlin’s head pillows sweetly on his chest in a groove that feels as though it was made for this purpose. Arthur catches his breath quickly just so he can inhale deeply and watch Merlin’s content smile rise, and then fall when he exhales.

“Have I satisfied the beast?” Arthur asks. As soon as he’s said the words, he realizes his meaning is not quite clear. Merlin is laughing at him before he manages to clarify. “Will your pigeon stop trying to murder me, now that I’ve offered you such—selfless generosity.”

Merlin’s laughter grinds to something that’s not quite a halt. He tilts his head just slightly to look up into Arthur’s eyes. There’s so much depth there, so much they could be speaking of, and so Arthur feels quite glad that they’re talking about pigeons.

“Er, I’m afraid not.”

Arthur holds Merlin closer, his sated body already thrumming with the promise of having further excuses to do offer Merlin _more_ of his generosity, if only to appease a pigeon. “Oh? You need more?”

Merlin stretches to kiss him, as though testing whether he still can. He can. He can, and he can, and he can. 

Arthur is breathless again when Merlin pulls back to say, “Actually, he’s probably going to want to murder you even more, now. You see, the real reason he hates you is that—Well, he’s quite possessive of me.”

It takes Arthur a moment to realize everything that Merlin is implying. When he realizes it, he tucks it away into a tender corner of his heart, to examine and perhaps treasure later, when he can take the time to fathom how much Merlin must love him for even an animal to sense it and grow jealous. “A _bird_? _Jealous_? About _me_? What an absolutely absurd creature.”

The smile Merlin gives him arches his eyebrows a little too well for Arthur’s comfort. “Yes,” he says, resting his chin on Arthur’s chest and looking straight at him. “What an absurd creature indeed.”

Arthur wraps his arms around Merlin to hoist him closer. He’s going to take such great pleasure in making that bird hate him even more.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic post [here](https://arthurpendragonsfatass.tumblr.com/post/636531839665831936/familiar-merlinarthur-e-4k-by-blake-of-all).


End file.
